Red-Green Alliance rejects one billion kroner for psychiatry research centre

Denmark’s Red-Green Alliance was the only party to reject a one billion kroner grant for a national clinical psychiatry research centre, DR reported. The money would come from the Lundbeck Foundation, which has offered Region East Denmark 100 million kroner a year for 10 years to establish and run the centre at Bispebjerg Hospital.

The centre is planned to house 180 researchers and other staff. All other parties on the preparatory regional council voted to accept the funding, making the centre likely to go ahead.

Tormod Olsen, the Red-Green Alliance’s group chair in Region East Denmark, said the party opposed private foundations having a major influence on the development of healthcare and research.

“A billion sounds like a lot for a subject we consider important,” Olsen said. “But we have held this principle for many years, and sometimes you have to stick to your principles if you want a different future.”

Conservative regional council member Jacob Rosenberg said he respected the party’s principle that research should be funded publicly, but considered it unrealistic. Without private foundation funding, he said, “there would be no research at all.”

Jakob Kjellberg, a professor of health economics at VIVE, also said replacing private foundation funding would require either substantially less research or a large increase in public funding. Losing foundation support would have a major effect on research activity at hospitals, he said.

Olsen said public funding could have been found for this centre by including a research component in the 10-year plans for psychiatry, allowing funds to be allocated according to political and professional priorities.